Second Annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair

San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park
March 29th, 1997

by Chuck0 (chuck0@geocities.com)

On Saturday, March 29, 1997, anarchists and other bibliophiles gathered
from around the world in San Francisco for the Second Annual Bay Area
Anarchist Book Fair. Bound Together Books, a San Francisco anarchist
collective bookstore, sponsored the event. While the focus was on books,
there were also speakers and an art show.

I really enjoyed the Fair. I was there as an exhibitor for Spunk Press,
an online anarchist archive. We had a demo of the full archive set up on
a laptop. Folks surfed our archive and picked up our flyers. Spunk has
done demos at other anarchist book fairs, including a recent one in the
U.K.

There were around 40 vendors, which ranged from anarchist book
distributors to infoshops to used bookstores. Who was there? There were
tables from AK Press (anarchist book distributor), Bound Together Books
(anarchist bookstore on Haight St.), Slingshot (infoshop in Berkeley),
Anarchy magazine, The Autonomous Zone (Chicago infoshop), E.G. Smith
(distributors), Blackout Books (New York), Loompanics (infamous
distributors), City Lights Books, Food Not Bombs, Free Radio Berkley
(pirate radio), Left Bank Books and Distribution (anarchist bookstore in
Seattle), Spunk Press, Planet Drum, III Publishing, Black Autonomy
magazine, Flatland magazine, The Kate Sharpley Library (U.K.), hemp
activists, several zines and several other bookstores. I had heard
complaints that last year's Fair had too many non-anarchist tables, but
my impression was that anarchist-related tables predominated at this
event.

Several thousand visited during the 8 hours the Fair was open. There
were alot of punks among the visitors, but I think the Fair had a wide
range of attendees. I'm sure that several hundred just dropped in
because it was a nice day and they were visiting the park.

There were speakers who spoke in an auditorium next to the main room.
This auditorium also included an art fair and the cafe (vegan pizza,
sandwiches, microbrew, wine ... all catered). Speakers included Carol
Queen (sex positive radical -- I bought her book), Harry Hay (a founder
of the modern gay movement), J.G. Eccarius (Last Days of Christ the
Vampire), Jane Doe (Anarchist Farm), California American Indian Movement
activist Carol Standing Elk, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, and Jello Biafra.
There were about 50 people consistently for the speakers and several
hundred for Jello. Artists being shown included Freddie Baer, Johann
Humy Being, John Yates, Winston Smith, and others.

The Spunk table was sandwiched between the Slingshot table and the
Anarchy magazine table. Slingshot was doing a brisk business selling
their "organizers" t-shirts, and patches. The patches were so popular
that they kept spilling over onto our table. Patches are these little
silk-screened cloth things that punks sew on their jackets. They also
sold out of their "Smash TV" t-shirts. I bought a "Free Radio Berkley"
t-shirt, but was disappointed that they didn't have my size for the
"Rent is theft" shirt.

Anarchy:AJODA magazine has a new issue out. They also had new t-shirts
designed by Jame Koehnline and they've published a new Bob Black book,
which is critical of Murray Bookchin.

The Fair and other informal events held during the weekend created the
atmosphere of a mini-gathering, sans workshops. I got to see friends
that I'd only known on email, as well as old friends and new ones. I got
a chance to meet archivists from the Kate Sharpley Library, the Labadie
Collection, and the Anarchy Archives in Massachusetts.

All in all a very exciting and intellectually stimulating event. Let's
hope they do it again next year.